Bowl Coatings – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Part I
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Kevin Godbee - Jan 21, 2013
- 5 min read
G. L. Pease
One of the most contentious of the long-running debates in the pipe community is the issue of bowl coatings. Why something so seemingly innocuous can drive discussions to a fevered pitch is intriguing, since, on the surface, it seems a fairly innocent thing.
When I’ve discussed the subject with other pipemen, the only ones who vocally defend coatings, sometimes quite vehemently, are the pipe makers who use them.
Smokers seem to fall into one of three categories: those who don’t like coatings at all, their presence in a pipe being a deal breaker in their buying decisions; those who prefer uncoated bowls, but won’t turn away a pipe they like simply because of a coating (I fall into this category), and; those who really just don’t care one way or another. I’ve yet to meet a buyer who refused to consider a pipe because of the absence of a coating. So, if the most positive thing a buyer can say is that he’s ambivalent over coatings, and many find them insufferable, why do some pipe-makers insist on using them? And, what are these mysterious coatings, what purpose do they serve, and how can they affect the smoking characteristics of the pipes to which they are applied?
When considering the “why” question, things can get a bit heated. A few makers I’ve discussed this with defend their bowl coatings with the ferocity of a mother bear, and absolutely hate the fact that people, especially me, apparently, bring it up. Some suggest that the coating protects the briar during the first smokes, before a cake is established, a claim that is non-falsifiable at best, and more than likely a belief whose genesis lies in some chapter of arcane pipe-making folklore with little evidentiary support. The only two pipes I’ve ever owned that burned out were both heavily coated by their makers. I’m a careful smoker, but these things burned like Roman Candles. No coating would have saved them, short of a layer of surplus re-entry tiles from the belly of the space shuttle. It is possible that these coatings may help to protect the surface of the briar from careless smokers during those first critical smokes, but I’ve known guys who could burn-out a pipe made from asbestos, and though I remain skeptical of any genuine prophylactic benefit from a thin layer of any coating, I will accept as possible that some limited protection may be offered.
And, honestly, I don’t blame these makers for trying, whether through chemistry or Voodoo charms, to spare their pipes from heavy handed smokers who puff like locomotives and light their tobacco with an oxyacetylene torch. They’ve got many hours of blood, sweat and tears, not to mention expensive materials invested in their beautiful works of art, and reducing the risk, even if only slightly, of having to replace one destroyed by abuse is probably a good strategy.
Some collectors feel that bowl coatings are sometimes used by unscrupulous pipe makers to masque flaws in briar or workmanship, it seems there is little evidence to support this, at least amongst pipes from the artisan makers who do choose to coat their bowls as a matter of convention. It’s unlikely that any pipe maker would risk his reputation by spending the long hours necessary to complete a pipe that has known flaws in the briar, only to cover up those flaws with black goo. Every pipe maker I know has a big box of scrap pipes in various stages of completion, the result of flaws that revealed themselves during carving or drilling. At least when considering quality pipes, this seems to be a non-issue.
A few makers I’ve talked with have said that they believe their coatings to help smooth out the break-in process during the initial bowls. This is a bit of a tough sell for me. I’ve always found that raw briar, provided that it’s processed, aged and seasoned properly, performs just fine, though there are brands that are notorious for lengthy and sometimes difficult break-in. (I wonder if anyone has applied a coating to one of these pipes to see if they can verify the claim of improving break-in. I assume most makers have tried their own pipes both with and without coatings, but it might be interesting to explore different coatings on difficult pipes.) But, for the most part, I enjoy the taste that great briar adds to the first few bowls, so, for me, anything that gets in the way of that is not really a benefit. Others feel differently.
Many makers take a less arguable stance, stating that they simply prefer what they consider the more finished look of a coated bowl to that of a pipe with an unfinished interior—a purely aesthetic approach that either one cares about or doesn’t.
Larry Roush, for instance, a maker whose pipes I am known to hold in high regard, falls into this category. His coating’s raison d’être is simple. According to him, because of his curing process, his pipes’ bowls are very porous, doubtless one of the qualities that plays a role in his pipes’ excellent smoking characteristics. When he stains them, the colour sometimes penetrates the wood, resulting in a blotchy, mottled appearance inside the bowl. He told me, “It just doesn’t look right, and since it penetrates the wood, I can’t sand it off, so I developed my coating. It is 100% edible, and improves the appearance of the inside of the bowl.” Fair enough. His wood, coupled with excellent construction, and a wonderful, open draw, combine to deliver to the smoker a remarkable experience, and his coating has never seemed to get in the way of that experience, so I’m not going to argue.
Personally, I find nothing “unfinished” in the beauty of naked briar. I’ve never looked at a pipe and said to myself, “Damn, that would sure be beautiful, if only the bowl’s interior was black.” It will be certainly blackened soon enough …
Like them or not, bowl coatings are here to stay. In Part II, we’ll have a look at different types of bowl coatings, how they may or may not influence the way a new pipe smokes, why some smokers might care more than others about their presence, and I’ll share some personal experiences and experiments.
Your turn.
-glp
 Since 1999, Gregory L. Pease has been the principal alchemist behind the blends of G.L. Pease Artisanal Tobaccos. He’s been a passionate pipeman since his university days, having cut his pipe teeth at the now extinct Drucquer & Sons Tobacconist in Berkeley, California. Greg is also author of The Briar & Leaf Chronicles, a photographer, recovering computer scientist, sometimes chef, and creator of The Epicure’s Asylum. See our interview with G. L. Pease here. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. I’ve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case I’m merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing I’d endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, it’s (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so it’s a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of Herbstdüfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
“… those who prefer uncoated bowls, but won’t turn away a pipe they like simply because of a coating (I fall into this category)”… Me too!
Bowl coating has never figured in to my choices, but I have noticed that some are better than others. I have a Comoy’s that smoked beautifully from the first bowl, coating and all. Yet, my Peterson Irish Harp and Nording Wild Boar both had bowl coatings that gave off a chemical taste for the first 3 to 5 bowls. I thought at first that it was the tobacco, but I tried the same blend in an older pipe and did not get the chemical taste. I guess it is all part of the break in process, coating or not.
Great article and a great debate as well. Personally, I have never used a bowl coating for a few reasons. Reason number one, it is not something I have tried out on one of my own personal pipes, therefore I would not feel comfortable selling a pipe with a bowl coating.. Reason number two, I have spoke with customers who just prefer to develop their own bowl coating. I am not in the least opposed to using a bowl coating on a pipe, as I actually think it helps a pipe aesthetic properties. But as stated previously, it would definitely need to be something that was tried and confirmed as non problematic on one of my personal everyday smokers.
The presence or absence of a bowl coating just doesn’t factor into my decision. My Ashtons and Dunhills all came coated (is there a difference between being oil cured and coated?) and all smoked wonderfully. Same for my Chris Askwith pipes. I also own three Larry Roush pipes. Larry’s pipes smoke so well for me that, frankly, I could really care less whether he uses Moose dung to coat his bowls. That’s his decision (and I know that before I hit the buy button), and I don’t really care one way or the other. All of that said, if someone was using a bowl coating that wasn’t “natural” and impacted the long term smoking quality of the pipe, then that would be a different kettle of fish. So far though I haven’t experienced that.
I own and smoke both finished and unfinished bowls. To me there is nothing as special as that first smoke from a new unfinished bowl. It’s like going out on that second date with a beautiful woman.
I do not like them, I have a Paulo Becker Grande Two Spades that was coated, sanded it , evercleared it and smoked it, I say new briar taste is the caviar of a new pipe, every new pipe I smoke I put a thermal gun to it and the pipes , all of them are not consist in the temp profile, every briar has a weak spot and knowing where it is helps avoid burnout, dry tobbaco is very essential in breaking in a pipe, I have used Carter Hall for new and estate pipes that were reamed to the briar, retorted, with great success, in this day and age of instant gracification some pipe smokers want to excel like a champ the first time they light up, doesn”t happen, in my line of work it took approx 5 yrs before a man was competent in his job, smokeing a pipe I believe is the same IMHO that’s my story and I”m sticking to it. The old cajun
Like Greg and others here have said, I too prefer no bowl coating but if present, it is certainly not deal breaker. Personally, I would not go to the extent of sanding out the coating, but that’s just me. I do have to admit that the un-coated bowl, to me, looks so beautiful and it almost pains me to put a light to it but alas, the pipe was designed to be smoked!
As long as the pipe itself has an appeal to me then coated or not matters not, but even better if un-coated.
Lou
I’ve come to enjoy the breaking in process more with an uncoated bowl. So I think I’ll align myself with the no coat crowd however it would not influence my decision to purchase a pipe.
Thanks for the great article and looking forward to part II.
I prefer no bowl coating or pre-smoked but if it has one i will sand it out or ask if the pipe maker can make me one thats not coated
I used to not care if a bowl was coated but I always preferred un-coated. I love the taste of those first few bowls when the briar flavor comes into play towards the end. It is something I look forward to and it makes breaking in a new pipe a joy for me. Today I will not buy a pipe that has been coated, the last two new pipes I did buy that were coated were both Ferndowns and I did not care for the taste at all. Since all the new pipes I buy are from artisans it will not be an issue for me. I honestly cannot understand the carvers reasons for coating a pipe, I hear the reasons they use but it I don’t buy it. If someone is going to abuse a pipe and burn it out, no bowl coating is going to stop it. In the case of Roush, maybe he should use a different type of stain so it does not soak through.
Since there appears to be little evidence either way… I prefer a natural interior. I can, however, respect the decision to coat the bowl if the inside looks “off” due to stains that have penetrated the wood. But if it looks good naked then for the love of Merlin leave it alone. 🙂
As a fledgling pipe maker, I am currently struggling with the decision to coat or not to coat.
My mentor in pipe making is insistent on coating all of his pipes and cannot understand why anyone would not want the bowl coated. His reasoning is principally aesthetic but he also insists that his secret mixture, no ingredient of which is not edible (yes people can and do eat charcoal dust)helps protect the chamber somewhat from abusive treatment during the first few smokings.
As one who stands absolutely behind every pipe he makes, he feels that the coating helps prevent situations in which he has to replace a pipe because some customer smokes his pipe too hot and too early. Given his 40+ years experience as a pipe maker, who am I to argue.
My personal preference as a collector has been for uncoated bowl. I, like Greg, enjoy the taste of the wood in the first few bowls. Now I am taking on a new role in the equation and have a tough choice to make.
The presence of a carbon coating influences my approach to the break-in process, but not the decision to buy the pipe. With a coated pipe I fill it up and smoke slowly and completely; with bare wood pipes I gradually increase the amount of tobacco used by one-third on every full moon. 🙂
Excellent comments, gentlemen. Thanks for weighing in. And, I’m looking forward to Part II, myself.
It all depends. If I can taste it bowl after bowl, it’s coming out real soon. MM corn cobs have a bitter taste to them. I’ll take a round wire brush and remove as much as needed to get the taste out of there. Most other pipes I have bought new never bothered me. I smoke real easy. I sip not chug. I rarely go toot toot either.
I trust the maker to do his job. It’s up to me to decide if it stays or not. It has to be pretty bad before I take the pipe to the wood shed.
I don’t think they improve anything. In some cases they taste bad or flake off eventually.
It does allow a guy to cover over stain “oopsy” situations, or ugly looking briar in the chamber.
As a maker, I don’t use them. Had one burnout in five years now. Not sure if it was wood or user error.
I always sand out the coating. Most of the time it’s useless, and often provides a fairly foul taste. Plus it destabilizes the cake building.
Plus some coatings contain stuff that either never dries (honey and oil) or stuff that just tastes round-out rotten.
Looking forward to part II. I’m curious to find out what i might be inhaling. I frown on the bowl coat, but will buy the pipe if it speaks to me. We all know that most pipe smokers favor a “long game” mentality. Building the cake is an exercise in patience that is as enjoyable as the practice of packing and smoking the pipe.
I prefer raw wood, no coating. If there’s a bit if stain on the wood, so what — that is much easier to remove than if a coating covers the entire bowl. Also, some of those coatings can go beyond the standard “pre-carb” and are really nasty. Were I to commission a pipe, no coating would be required.
Great article!
I’m would prefer uncoated pipes but I’ve found they are generally more expensive pipes that come uncoated.
Would anyone happen to know what pipes that is in the 1st and last picture. It’s a nice looking pipe and it’s go me very curious.
Good article.
I find no problem with bowl coatings. If a new pipe I purchase has no coating I may or may not just apply a very thin coat of honey, fill it up with tobacco, fire it up and smoke away very slowly.
No problems after years of pipe smoking.
But I’m not a “purist”.
Great article Greg… I buy pipes that speak to me, not for the bowl’s coating or lack thereof. I have smoked both types, and find the taste in an uncoated bowl to be pleasant.. Especially when made from pear, olive, or cherrywood. Looking forward to part II, to see just what it is that I have been smoking all these years in those coated bowls.
I’ve had both. All of my Petes have pre-carbon linings and all of my Savinellis were bare briar. I haven’t notice quite so much of a difference in them other than the pre-carbon lined bowls seem to break in faster than the bare briar. I do however enjoy watching the bare briar change colors. As for taste and smoke though, like I said I haven’t noticed much of a difference.
Strange that you didn’t mention what these coating are made of. What does Dunhill, and a few other makers use? I like them. The pipe breaks in easier.
@foggymountain – read the last sentence of the article for your answer.
This observation/discussion on bowl coatings is quite interesting and amazing to see so much interest from smokers.
I have on occasion removed bowl coatings from brand new pipes just to see if there were any flaws in the tobacco chamber. To my amazement there were none. Some of these bowls were thin, some were amazingly thick. Apparently it is the maker who makes this decision on his/her preferences, or a factory policy to do so. Either way it has never factored into a purchase for me personally. I do believe however that quality restorations on estate pipes can be helped with bowl coating to remove any previous owners ghosting of residual tobacco taste. Just my 2 cents.
Coatings do 2 things for me…Protect the briar from the elements and enhance some of the beautiful characteristics of the wood.
I’m not a fan of coatings at all. I just bought a new Savinelli, and the coating gives a horrible taste. Really noticeable and off-putting. On the other hand, my last two pipe purchases before the Savinelli were Radices — no coating whatsoever. And they both smoked fantastically from the very first smoke. I am very careful when I get a brand new pipe — smoking 15 to 20 1/3 bowls — with each smoke spaced at least 2 days apart. Then I do 15 or 20 2/3 bowls spaced the same way, and finally full bowls after that. That’s the way I’ve always broken pipes in and I’ve never had a non-coated new pipe give me trouble when treated that way.
I guess that I am a fan of coated bowls, but it’s not a deal breaker either way. If I buy an uncoated bowl, I usually smoke 5-6 bowls of burley tobacco to start the cake. But, I don’t really care much for burley tobacco. If the bowl is coated, I do typically give it a wipe with some everclear on a paper towel so it is just a very thin coating. On those pipes, I can jump right into my favorite lat-heavy blends which I enjoy immensely. So, due to my break-in process, a coated bowl with my favored blends is preferred.
I may be the exception, but I actually don’t really change the break-in routine of a coated vs. uncoated bowl. Nor do I have much of a preference for either. As with every new pipe I take it slow and just like many others gradually build up the cake.
With regards to the taste, and this may be due to the lack of my olfactory capabilities, I have never experienced that much of a difference. I carry one of two Savinelli’s pretty much all the time. They both came coated and if I detected any flavor difference during the initial smokes, it is all but a faded memory. I definitely cannot recall the bad taste Pauljmjr is mentioning. I’m not claiming he is wrong. I personally just cannot recall experiencing it.
I also have several pipes that came with uncoated bowls, amongst which two excellent BriarBird pieces, and just like I cannot recall off flavors with the coated bowls, I cannot recall any increased sensory satisfaction of my taste buds with those sporting an untreated bowl.
When lighting up a pipe for the first time, I pay more attention to the craftmansip, the feel in the hand, the open draw and decide which tobacco would suit this particular piece of briar. Once dedicated to English, Virginias, Virginia Perique or Aromatics, they seldom cross over into another category.
Could the coating vs. naked bowl discussion be one influenced by psychology more than facts ? After all, if it looks bad, shouldn’t it taste bad ?
I do not like the taste of briar burning when breaking in a pipe or even the taste of briar. I do not like to taste bowl coating, either. A neutral bowl coating is fine with me, but not essential to my purchase decision. A nasty tasting bowl coating or stain have kept me from buying a second pipe from a maker unless I can order without a coating. Gosh, we pipe guys can be challenging patrons.
Perhaps a double post with “Ask GLP” and perhaps anticipating Part II – but an appreciation of the taste of a good briar pipe is the thing that differentiates briar smokers from meer lovers and puts one firmly on the side of the briar v brand debate.
An impervious bowl coating such as water glass (sodium silicate), for me, removes all the initial pleasurable taste of a good briar.
I actually like the coated bowls! One thing i dislike is the taste of breaking in a new pipe. Have a hardcastle pipe that just seemed to take forever to break in (not having a coating).
My turn? Sure-
Hi,
I’m an aspiring pipe-maker and I do coat the bowls of my pipes.
This is a strange subject that always seems to come up from time to time. I often get the impression that some of the pipe-smokers who say the HATE bowl coatings are almost personally offended. As if the implication is that they personally (their name here) don’t know how to smoke a pipe. These same sensitive folk then spend extra time and effort creating a cake or bowl coating to aid in the break-in process. -huh? so why take mine out if you’re just going to add… oh forget it-
I’ve been working on this for a few years. I thought I had it worked out but maybe not. Maybe never? I do not coat bowls for the cleaner more finished appearance, although that is a positive. I also do not coat them because I think most pipe-smokers don’t know how to smoke and I might be able to save my precious work from their clumsy, savage smoking (gee I hope I didn’t offend any clumsy savages). There are several potential benefits but, I primarily coat the bowls to try to give each pipe a more neutral flavor during the initial break-in period. Neither too harsh nor too woody. So that the experience can be somewhat similar (I hope) if someone decides to buy more than one pipe from me.
I could go on and on, but I’ve got pipes to make.
back to you…
I started out buying Peterson pipes just because they are Irish made, and they all have coatings. I recently purchased a Savenelli which is not coated. I cannot tell any difference in taste and they are all great smokers, so for me it doesn’t really matter.
Great article, Greg, thanks for stirring up trouble” 🙂
I agree with what I’m seeing as a consensus of sorts – it doesn’t make much difference to me. I just watch out for pipes that have stain on the inside – some Peterson’s come to mind – those I ream!
I prefer a raw uncoated bowl, but a coated bowl isn’t a deal breaker.
I know they claim a coating is helpful for the breaking in process, but
I’ve broken in many dozens of pipes with no coating, and I’ve never coated a new bowl w/ water, or a thin coating of honey or anything else, I just fill it with tobacco and smoke it like any other pipe and I’ve never had a problem.
I think it’s all much ado about nothing.
Some coatings give a bad taste at first, but it goes away quickly.
This has never mattered to me in my choice of pipe purchases. Looking for a pipe is like looking for a women. It’s what catches my eye at first. All the rest is secondary. Plus, if a pipe maker made a line pipe that had a high chance of burnout. They would probably go out of business due to the bad reputation. It’s like the Ford Pinto, the location did not do them to well.
About a year ago I purchased a beautiful, nicely grained pipe made by an Italian artisan pipe maker whose work I have collected. This was the first time I had ever seen a coated bowl from this maker, but did not think much of it at the time. On the third smoke it burned through. The first and only time I have ever had a bowl burned through. I can only conjecture that the maker was covering up the defect in the bowl with the coating. The merchant I bought it from happily exchanged it for another pipe, however I no longer collect pipes made by the maker in question.
I have owned both coated and uncoated and actually I am one that prefers the look of a new coated pipe vs uncoated. I love the asthetic contrast between the jet black bowl and the surrounding finish of the pipe. I compare the unfiished bowl to that of a Rolls Royce with the hood left unpaited.
With the coated pipes I have owned over the years I have never felt or sensed that the coating interfered with the tobacco at all.
Another reason I prefer a coated pipe is because I have never felt attached to the experience of smoldering wood during the break-in process.
The article was as finely crafted as the pipes about which it concerned. Although I have been a pipe smoker since 1989, when I began studies at NMSU as an untraditional student, during the past two years that my Pipe Acquisition Disorder has developed my collection has grown at an exponential rate to 53 of diverse varieties. I would have several more, except that in the early days of my smoking I bought some no-name Italians I later concluded were coated with something tacky and even polyurethane and therefore harmful to the pipes’ breathing. So, being adventurous, I sanded off the offensive varnishes and found truly beautiful previously hidden grains. As a basic minimalist at heart, I refinished these and other pipes since with simple baby-smooth sanding, waxing and buffing. I gave away the three no-names, all of which were appreciated as excellent smokers. But I have nothing against more quality coatings and look forward some day to making my own pipes using one or another of them.
What a great discussion. It’s always fun to see how many other people agree or disagree with one’s feelings on a subject. Personally, I prefer uncoated bowls, however it’s not a buy or don’t buy issue with me. I believe that most of the pipes I buy are coated as that seems to be the trend of the maker today. I love the taste of breaking in a Castello because their briar seems to have a pleasant sweet taste during the break in period. I don’t know if I can mention names, but one artisan gives the buyer a choice when he posts a pipe on his website. If you want it coated, he will do so before shipping the pipe. I believe that’s a great idea and wonder why it hasn’t caught on. If one commissions a pipe to be made by an artisan I feel that the buyer should have the choice of coating or no coating. Thanks Greg.